PicoBlog

Don’t bother Googleing it. I’ve tried. There’s almost nothing. Maps are my favorite hobby. I love topographical maps, with their beautiful lines and curves and what they tell you. I love nautical charts, dark blue soundings, marks for shoals and what they whisper about the waves and water. This route is from McKenzie Map No. 2, E. Bearskin Lake. Unlike most of the hiking routes along the North Shore, this isn’t a popular route.

11-30-2023 (issue No. 116) Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

One January day in 1993, Bryan Shelton stood in the lobby of the Como Hotel in Melbourne, Australia, when he locked eyes with a girl. He was a tennis player; she was a rival’s sister, and since they both lived on the wild merry-go-round that is professional tennis, they could only have found themselves in Melbourne for one reason: the Australian Open. Bryan asked for her name. “Lisa,” she said.

(Paying Subscribers, you’ll find at the bottom a musicians’ magazine from 1943.) (Leif Bo Petersen is a Danish trumpeter and a researcher, especially on the bebop masters. He is the coauthor with Theo Rehak of the Fats Navarro biography, with musical analysis, and he has compiled a detailed Charlie Parker chronology available here. He has greatly expanded his work on the Hines band that Parker joined, exclusively for our readers, and we thank him for sharing this fine research with us.

Today we’ll be taking a look at one of the most controversial experimental military rounds, one that many believe should have become the standard for the Western World at the beginning of the Cold War. That round is the .280 British, also known as the 7x43mm, and beginning in 1947 it competed head-to-head against the caliber that eventually became the 7.62 NATO in trials to become the standard infantry small arms caliber of the free world.

You sit around in a circle and whisper a word or short phrase to the person next to you. Then they do the same. And so on. The last person can now tell everyone what the phrase was. “I have three goldfish” could turn out to be “French fries for thee”. If you have 3 or 4 people in the game, chances are they won’t stray too far from the original, but if you add 10 more people, with various hearing quality and some with accents, then chances are pretty good that the original phrase will be completely different.

Preliminary note: For Gmail readers, this essay might be clipped due to size limitations. To read the entire essay simply click on “View entire message” at the bottom of the email, thanks. Nomads, The Steppe and the Caucasus     The devastation inflicted by steppe nomads upon the agricultural societies to their south is one of the great stories in Eurasian history. Attila the Hun’s campaigns against Rome and Mongol invasions of China are familiar to us all, so is China’s famous Great Wall which was built to protect civilization from the barbarians to the north.

Hojo Masako Died on This Day, August 16, 1225 Said to be “The most important woman in Japanese military history”, political leader Hojo Masako was born in 1156 during the tumultuous warring of the late Heian period Hogen and Heiji Rebellions, two short civil conflicts fought over the Imperial succession. The Hogen no Ran in particular is seen as the basis for the emerging dominance of the samurai class.  

HOKKAIDO RAMEN SANTOUKA is a short walk away from the central hub of Broadway and Cambie. Unassuming, small, with surgically white lights, it is nonetheless a place that comes highly reviewed by YVR locals. MJ was not impressed as much as A, who loved it and ate faster (a historic first) than everyone else. This time we were joined by our guest Hoélune, who tagged along and mostly drank Oolong tea.